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Show 70 CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESS. SECTION III. Nature and Management of the Senses. VERY little preparation is necessary for observing nature, because we are all formed for that express purpose· and, instead of it costing us any effort to observe,' our powers of observation torture us with listlessness and ennui if we shut them up idly, and will not suffer them to instruct us. Still, all those powers are capable of improve~ent; and th_e beauty of the matter is, that the exercise and the Improvement are exactly the same. No sense of the body is in a state fit for accurate observation unless the oody generally be in a state of health; an excess of any kind renders the hand tremulous, the eye dim, the ear either dull or painfully sensitive, and nothing is fragrant to the smell or pleasant to the taste. Those who commit excesses get their punishment in this way; and a severe punishment it is. We are accustomed to say of those who are in such a state that they are "half-dead;" and the expression is very correct; for each sense may be diminished to a half, or even to a smaller fraction of its healthful quantity; and thus the person who is in that unfortunate condition is literally dead to the full measure of the deficiency. No matter what the excess consists in; for though various kinds of excess have different effects, and the effects of some are more permanently mischievous than those of others, yet every kind of excess is a mischief; and we cannot gratify any one sense-or even insensibility itself, to a state of intoxication, without paying for it in our general happiness. Excess of food TAS'flNG. 71 le~ds direc~ly to stapef~ction? excess of stimulating ?rmk_ ends m stupefacho~ still more complete, but It arnves at that conclusiOn through a delirium of ~ery strong: and, up ~o a certain point, of very dellghtful_ excitement-Just in the same manner that the excite~ent of eating wholesome food in mode; ate qua~tity when we are ~ungry i_s very delightful. fhe sottishness of the contmually mtoxicated, with whom drunkenness has become so much a habit ~hat they absolutely cannot get drunk (for that, and mdeed any excess, may be carried so far as to destroy its own. effe_ct, by de_adening that part of the system ~m ~hiCh It acts), Is next thing to an absolute exhnctwn of the observation of nature ; and when the J?OWers ar~ absolutely gone in that way, they ?-re m. mo~t I~sta!lces irrecoverably gone. OccasiOnal mtoxiCatwn IS also an occasional destr~ lction, by means of which time is lost, and from which the powers seldom recover with all their forme~ tone and activity. But still there is a point even m the progress of that, up to which all is wholesome and _profitabl~; and as every nation nnde1~ the sun wh1ch ha~ discovered any thing at all has discovered some drmk or substance of a stimulating nature, the temperate use of such stimulants m.ust not only be not improper, it must be natural and necessa!Y· Thus, in order to enjoy nature fully, and crowd mto the years of our time the greatest ~mount of life, or, in other words, the greatest en. Joyment, we must not have a prejudice against any thmg, any more than a predilection for it beyond its proper measure. There is some pleasure to be got out of every thing, be it what it may; and thus, though the place and the circumstance of our lives limit us to only a few, we should be ready both in knowledge and in aptness to enjoy an~ new one that comes in our way. Still, the tastes and the ?ther sensations connected with eating and drinkmg are the most merely ~nimal parts of our whole |